A battle of ‘turncoats’ mark electoral slugfest in Allahabad

Two rallies by the Prime Minister and one by Amit Shah have failed to enthuse voters in Allahabad. The three rallies were marked by poor attendance and BJP poll managers were at pains to blame the scorching heat for the empty chairs at the rallies. But even the speeches left the voters cold and the consensus seems to be building up that the Gathbandhan candidate, a hard working but low profile local activist, has a fair chance of winning the seat.

The seat has been represented by Amitabh Bachchan, a friend of Rajiv Gandhi and son of poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan who was fielded by the Congress in 1984 and also by Vishwanath Pratap Singh who went on to become the Prime Minister. Bachchan had won convincingly against former chief minister and political heavyweight Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna, who had left the Congress in 1977. But while Bahuguna lost, VP Singh, who too left the Congress to float the Jan Morcha won in 1989 by beating Anil Shastri.

This time, Bahuguna’s daughter and UP cabinet minister, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, has been fielded from the seat by the BJP. Taking her on are Gathbandan candidate and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Rajendra Patel and Yogesh Shukla of the Congress. What is ironical is the fact that Joshi had at one time been a popular face of the Congress for many years. She had unsuccessfully contested from the seat in 1999 on a Congress ticket and later on occupied several important positions in the Congress including that of national president of Mahila Congress and that of the UPCC president before switching over to the BJP during the 2017 Assembly elections.

In the same manner, the Congress candidate is also an old time BJP worker who started his career with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) before joining the party. He had also contested the 2009 parliamentary elections from Allahabad seat on a BJP ticket and, after remaining in wilderness thereafter for the next 10 years, crossed over to the Congress. A loyalist of senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, his political fortunes took a beating since 2014 after the Modi government came to power at the Centre as his mentor was sidelined along with other stalwarts like Lal Krishna Advani, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie.

Around 9 lakh voters would be casting their votes in the 2019 election, say official figures out of which more than 63,000 are new voters. Considering the trend of past few elections, the fight this time is again between the BJP and Gathbandhan candidates, feel leaders from both the sides.

Manas Sharma, close aide of the BJP candidate who is touring the constituency with his leader round the clock, says that Joshi would win by a comfortable margin, given the massive support she is receiving from the voters in all five Assembly constituencies which are Allahabad South, Karchana, Meja, Koraon and Bara. The schemes started by the Central government for the poor like the Ujjwala Yojana, PM housing scheme, construction of toilets under Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan and Ayushman Bharat Yojana would fetch enough votes, he feels.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is coming once again to the city on Thursday where he would be addressing a rally at the Parade Ground. However, here it would be pertinent to mention that the previous rally of the Prime Minister and BJP president Amit Shah had not drawn the crowd as the BJP had expected. Rows of empty chairs at both the venues were seen. Local BJP leaders blamed it on the scorching heat.

On the other hand, the Gathbandhan camp is quite optimistic of its victory, says SP leader Ajju Ishaq who is also in charge of the Allahabad South Lok Sabha segment.

He says that there is no Modi wave this time and voters want a response from the Central government on the fulfilment of promises they made during the 2014 election campaign. Besides, they are not ready to forgive them for the hardship they faced on account of Demonetisation and faulty implementation of GST which cost crores of jobs.

SP leader Abhishek Yadav, who is also considered a close aide of the SP chief, says that elections this time in Allahabad seat is for the pride and honour of Dalits and backwards who are eager to elect their first representative from the seat. SP candidate Rajendra Patel has no major political background except the fact that he was the block pramukh of Bahadurpur block.

Congress candidate Yogesh Shukla is also working hard to keep pace with his rivals. His confidence stems from the fact that apart from being a local with a humble background, he has always taken up cudgels on behalf of people in the trans-Yamuna area on a regular basis over the last 15 years. He had undertaken a padayatra for the retrenched workers of Meja Spinning Mill in 2010 and has a major hold on Brahmin votes of the area, say party leaders.

He had polled third in 2009 on a BJP ticket and secured around 60,000 votes and this time hopes to give the other two a run for their money on the basis of his core voters along with Congress votes and some minority votes. Former MLA Anugrah Narayan Singh says, “This time, our candidates are going to give a tough fight, given the favourable response of the public towards the NYAY scheme, 22 lakh jobs and sops for the farmers.”